“Okay?”
“You want it.”
“That doesn’t mean I take it.”
“No.
But it means we start there.”
She stared at him as though she had prepared for every possible reaction except calm.
Carisi knew why.
For years, both of them had confused love with sacrifice at one point or another.
They had learned, often painfully, that caring for someone did not mean becoming smaller so the other person never had to feel uncomfortable.
Partnership was harder than that.
It required two people to remain visible.
“Tell me what scares you about taking it,” he said.
Amanda looked down.
“Losing time.”
“With me?”
“With us.”
“Anything else?”
She hesitated.
“Becoming the person who’s always somewhere else.”
Carisi listened.
“Anything else?”
Amanda gave him a tired smile.
“You planning to cross-examine me all night?”
“Only until you stop dodging.”
She sighed.
Then the answer came out quieter.
“I’m scared I’ll be good at it.”
Carisi’s expression changed.
Amanda looked toward the dark window.
“Because if I’m good at it, then I’ll want more.
And if I want more, then there’s always going to be another thing to balance, another decision, another reason for you to wonder whether I’m choosing you.”
Carisi sat very still.
He understood then that the folder had never really been the threat.
Amanda’s old instinct was.
The instinct to assume love had to be protected by withholding difficult truths until she had solved them alone.
He reached across the table.
She looked at his hand but did not take it yet.
“Amanda,” he said, “I don’t need you to stop wanting things so I can feel secure.”
Her eyes lifted.
“I need you to tell me when you want them.”
She swallowed.
“Even if it changes things?”
“Especially then.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Amanda put her hand in his.
It was not cinematic.
There was no swelling music.
No dramatic kiss.
No perfect speech waiting to summarize everything they had survived together.
There was just recognition.
The same recognition that had carried them from partnership into friendship, from friendship into something neither of them could dismiss, and eventually into the kind of love that had stopped needing constant explanation.
Carisi squeezed her hand once.
“Now tell me the part you haven’t told me yet.”
Amanda’s eyebrows rose.
“What part?”
“You have the face.”
